"dial back" meaning in English

See dial back in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-dial back.ogg [Australia] Forms: dials back [present, singular, third-person], dialing back [participle, present], dialling back [participle, present], dialed back [participle, past], dialed back [past], dialled back [participle, past], dialled back [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|past2=dialled back|pres_ptc2=dialling back}} dial back (third-person singular simple present dials back, present participle dialing back or dialling back, simple past and past participle dialed back or dialled back)
  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To reduce (one's energy or intensity); to restrain (a feeling or action). Tags: idiomatic, transitive Synonyms: de-emphasize, downplay
    Sense id: en-dial_back-en-verb-u3OlfkCR Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs with particle (back)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for dial back meaning in English (2.1kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dials back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialing back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialling back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialed back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialed back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialled back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialled back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "past2": "dialled back",
        "pres_ptc2": "dialling back"
      },
      "expansion": "dial back (third-person singular simple present dials back, present participle dialing back or dialling back, simple past and past participle dialed back or dialled back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (back)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023 July 9, AP, “‘You should have seen this note’: US meteorologists harassed for reporting on climate crisis”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "The Des Moines station asked him to dial back his coverage, facing what he called an understandable pressure to maintain ratings.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reduce (one's energy or intensity); to restrain (a feeling or action)."
      ],
      "id": "en-dial_back-en-verb-u3OlfkCR",
      "links": [
        [
          "reduce",
          "reduce"
        ],
        [
          "restrain",
          "restrain"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To reduce (one's energy or intensity); to restrain (a feeling or action)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "de-emphasize"
        },
        {
          "word": "downplay"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-dial back.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/de/En-au-dial_back.ogg/En-au-dial_back.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/En-au-dial_back.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "dial back"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dials back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialing back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialling back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialed back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialed back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialled back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dialled back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "past2": "dialled back",
        "pres_ptc2": "dialling back"
      },
      "expansion": "dial back (third-person singular simple present dials back, present participle dialing back or dialling back, simple past and past participle dialed back or dialled back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrasal verbs",
        "English phrasal verbs with particle (back)",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023 July 9, AP, “‘You should have seen this note’: US meteorologists harassed for reporting on climate crisis”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "The Des Moines station asked him to dial back his coverage, facing what he called an understandable pressure to maintain ratings.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reduce (one's energy or intensity); to restrain (a feeling or action)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "reduce",
          "reduce"
        ],
        [
          "restrain",
          "restrain"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To reduce (one's energy or intensity); to restrain (a feeling or action)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "de-emphasize"
        },
        {
          "word": "downplay"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-dial back.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/de/En-au-dial_back.ogg/En-au-dial_back.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/En-au-dial_back.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "dial back"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.